Tag Archives: chess

So many exciting shenanigans, I can barely keep up. (Everyone please remember, I have a very loose definition of “exciting”.) I went for a cottage weekend with various of The Girls last week, to celebrate our freedom from MLIS-dom. I ate such a ridiculous amount of food, I am not joking. If I ever want to become truly skinny, I have to stop being friend with people who are such good cooks, I swear to Christ. But that would entail losing both wonderful friends and fabulous food, and I’m pretty sure I look awesome anyway, so I’ll just keep everything.

The cottage was lovely, even though I had to leave a day early for work, like a big big loser. But I had some forest shenanigans. I did nature yoga! I did my tree pose on a rock by a still lake, then I found a rock in the middle of a running stream, so I did tree again on it! It was harder in the running stream, because of the movement. This is science with yoga I am doing, not fucking around in the woods on one leg.

Then I had to part with the most precious thing, my mother’s car. Yes, strangely, after Mom got back from her Caribbean adventure she seemed to want her car back. Also, her cat. Madness. I tried to make a run for it, me and the cat against the world, but I can only get places via Google Maps, so the cops can find me pretty fast if they just check my search history (“Come, Kitty, to the Amherst liquor store! Then the New Brunswick border, and freedom!”). Also, if I got lost (and I would), I would probably call Mom, which makes stealing her car a little unrealistic.

Hanging out in Truro was good times. I again played board games with six-year-old Tyler, and again lost to him. This time it was Trouble, so it’s less likely he was cheating, the little sneak. Next time I go up, he wants to play chess with me. God, as you may remember from this, I have played chess exactly once and did pretty badly (though eventually won). And considering how much this kid kicks my ass, he’s probably going to be giving me pity do-overs. I think I need to start studying my chess moves in time for my Easter chess beat-down from my tiny nephew. I’ll play against the three-year-old after, to bolster my ego. (He will eat my king and I will weep.)

Kickboxing on Friday! We took a trip to Thai-land, as in Muay Thai, which is seriously fun. The stance is different, with the hands out in front instead of up next to your face. It feels very natural for punching, but defensively a little exposed, since I’m used to getting smacked for not having my hands next to my face. Also, we were supposed to have our legs straighter and bouncier, but I’m pretty sure I immediately forgot that, the way I immediately forget my grappling stance in grappling, because apparently my legs only like to do one thing no matter how stupid that is. So, we were blocking an overhand hook, grabbing the partner in a one-handed side-clinch, then kneeing him in the stomach. Then, block the punch, push the face, knee the stomach. Muay Thai apparently involves a lot of kneeing people in the stomach, which is a thing I can get behind. We ended with a bit of the old spinning back-kick, which is fun to do once but hard to do, like, twelve times in a row. I think I need to practice spinning without getting dizzy or something, if that’s a thing, Classy Erica probably knows.

Also in kickboxing, we did an exercise where we had five minutes for holding a plank. You didn’t have to hold it for the whole five minute, but as soon as you dropped out of the plank, you were done. My plank is so crappy, I usually can’t hold it for more than a minute, but then I go in and out of it. So for this, I didn’t want to be the first person in the class to drop out, so I just tried and tried, and lost all track of the concept of time and anything else, and when I finally collapsed it was three and a half minutes. Holy crap! I thought I had the worst plank in the whole world! That time isn’t the best by a long shot (a few people kept it for the whole five), but it’s way better than I ever even dreamed I could do, so I was pretty excited. Apparently, according to the Plank Gods, if you can hold a plank for two minutes you are Officially Fit. But the Plank Gods are kind of biased.

Saturday three-hour bootcamp! Whoo! We couldn’t go to the gym, so we did it at the club. This just meant a little less weight-lifting, a little more whatever-insanity-Gerald-could-come-up-with. The best insanity was a balance exercise where you stood on one leg with your other leg extended as high as possible, in front, to the side, to the back, while moving your arms up, to the sides, in front. For a very long time. Seriously working those balance muscles that I’m pretty sure just don’t exist on me. My balance is so bad, I had to stand facing away from everyone else, so everything I was looking at was completely still. I managed to zebra up my legs because I retarded when it comes to skipping ropes, as it turns out. We also did piggyback calf-raises, and I actually collapsed when my piggybackee hopped on me the first time. She was bigger than me, and my piggyback posture is apparently bad. I’ve always been strong enough to power up from my bent back with partners my own size, but it’s different when they’re heavier than you. So! Long-time readers may remember my guide to being a piggybackee. Now I will impart the lessons on giving a piggyback ride.

Keep your back up straight. You’ll want to lean forward, to equalize the weight. This will actually throw off your balance!

Have your legs bent and shoulder-width apart, with one in front of the other for balance.

You are strong enough! Booyah!

Today I finally got back to grappling. I missed it for the past few weeks because of crazy homework and the like. But I’m back! We learned a really cool take-down called the head-snap. Basically, you just grab the back of your opponent’s head and shove it down quickly, and then they’re on the ground! And if they only go halfway down, then you choke them. If they don’t go down at all, then I don’t know what to tell you, my algorithm has failed. Then we did the Fireman’s Carry Takedown, which is fun as hell but really not something I plan on busting out until I practice it a little more. You wind up in a weird position after the person flips. At the end, rolling! I used the head-snap, which is so simple and effective, so much love.

Last night I went with various (former) classmates to watch some archival footage from the thirties in a church. It was strangely engaging. There were home movies of someone’s honeymoon from 1932, documentaries about porpoise hunters, and also the greatest short, ever. It was about burglars and mushroom casserole and it seriously needs to be remade by Jerry Bruckheimer as a summer blockbuster stat. No one else in the church seemed to find it as hilarious as us, though, which is weird, because it had the most bizarre plot, but everything hung together perfectly. Like a perfect short story, that ends with a pile of burglar corpses strewn merrily across your livingroom while everyone laughs.

So, I chessed for the first time at Erica’s party last night! (You guys, if we all use chess as a verb, it’ll totally catch on!) I won, but only because my teacher/opponent, the very nice and patient Nanci, gave me lots of tips and do-overs. I had, like six pieces left on the board, and I’d taken one of hers. I’m still in the very learning stages, where the pieces have the names: Diagonal Guy, Straight Guy, and Horse. I figured out pawn, queen, and king, but they can have silly names, too: Easy Metaphor, Doing-Whatever Badass, and Valuable Liability.

Last day of class tomorrow! Thank you, Jesus, for having your birthday just precisely when I am finished with this crap. Ah, but I kid. I’m read a new article about robots today, and it’s totally making it into my presentation tomorrow night. I am just excited about robots.

Oh yeah! Mary and I came up with the greatest sci-fi idea ever! Because, you see, robots are being programmed with ethics. And robots can also analyze lots of data, and they’re super-efficient, and they don’t need bonuses to pay for gold houses full of cocaine and whores. Anyway, so robots should run the banking industry. And that’s how robots take over the world. We give it to them, because they’re better than Bernie Madoff! So, a sci-fi show about banking robots. Ethical banking robots. This is the next Battlestar Galactica, right here.